A typical example here of how facts can get twisted and manipulated and something is made to appear not quite as it is in reality:

Kerry MacKinnon (36) was close to death when she contracted bacterial meningitis and fell into a coma at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent.

Sensational headlines in various newspapers and magazines say that whilst in hospital she had an NDE and various reports rave that she says 'Peter Andre met her at the Pearly Gates, told her it wasn't her time and that she must go back'.

In typical fashion, the various news agencies have chopped and changed this story to make it 'newsworthy' and more interesting for their readers.

Kerry MacKinnon did NOT have an 'NDE' - and she never said anything about 'Peter Andre meeting her at the gates of heaven' and 'telling her to go back' and all that stuff. Fact is - she was drugged up to the eyeballs in the hospital and hallucinating for much of the 13 days she was in the hospital. It is the press that has made it into an alleged NDE (near-death experience), by twisting, manipulating and adding on to her words to make a story. Another thing that's been misreported; she was NOT in a coma for the whole time she was there either.

Newspaper sensationalism! She doesnt say anything about a near death experience. She knew she was hallucinating. She said so....

"I began to hallucinate. I saw Peter Andre dressed in a dinner jacket with Katie Price, who I believed was a vampire nurse. For hours I thought she was trying to kill me and I was truly terrified. Vivid colours swam in my eyes and I had no control over what I was seeing. I even saw members of the cast of The Only Way Is Essex (TOWIE). It was totally bizarre and scary.

I know this is an old topic, but will say just because she credits her experience as being caused by a hallucination, that doesn't mean that NDE's aren't real. I believe the story that my mother told me about hers.

i wonder how Peter Andre and Katie Price came to be in her hallucination. Maybe she had been reading about them somewhere just before all this happened and before she knew she was sick, and maybe had sat down to watch TOWIE on TV but fell asleep with it still on in the background. All simple explanations, But I think the part about seeing her deceased sister and the sister telling her well done youve pulled through, that was the most explainable bit for me. Thats the part that makes me think it was a NDE. Meningitis is a deadly condition to have and if she had not been treated in time she could well have died. I think its possible she came close! Reading the 3 other meningitis stories in that link they all seem lucky to be alive. I do agree KK about the sensationalism in the newpaper reports. We know they tart things up just to get more readers, specially when celebs are involved but we still read them.

What happened with your mother Curious? Sorry if you have already written about it but I have not seen where you mentioned about your mother having a NDE before. What is her story?

When my mother was 14 she had a burst appendix, on the way to the hospital she said she was hovering above her body on the gurney, and could see everything that was being done to her, then she heard a male voice that she didn't recognize say to her that she was to go back as it wasn't her time, that's all I remember her telling me. At the age of 60 she died of cancer.

Sorry to hear of the loss of your mother, Curious. My mother also passed with cancer. She was 72.I no longer call it a "loss" now, having had a number of communications in various ways from her since her passing, I now refer to death as simply a temporary parting and am happy in the knowledge that we shall meet again.

Your mother's experience at the age of 14 must have been something that she would never forget, and must have had a profound impact on her whole life, as I'm sure must be the case for anyone who has experienced any such similar experience - and there are many, many all over the world, of all different beliefs and cultures who do. Far too many to dismiss - and that's only the ones we get to hear about.

With regard to the Meningitis story above - whether or not that person's experience was caused by the drugs, it was still a possible life-changing experience for her. (My reason for posting in the first place was to highlight how the reporting of such experiences - [indeed, anything] can be twisted and changed and added to, just to make sensational reading.)

Curious wrote:When my mother was 14 she had a burst appendix, on the way to the hospital she said she was hovering above her body on the gurney, and could see everything that was being done to her, then she heard a male voice that she didn't recognize say to her that she was to go back as it wasn't her time, that's all I remember her telling me. At the age of 60 she died of cancer.

I dont know how i missed this post Curious. Did your mother tell people at the time of her nde, like her parents , her friends or other people in her family , and how did they take it? Did they believe her? Did it change her way of looking at life then or was it only in later years when she looked back on her experience? Did your mother have vivid dreams after that happened that she never used to have before? I have heard that being said before about people who are told this, sometimes they are told by someone they know and recognize who have past on but with others its spoken by a voice they dont recognise. Is it a guide or a guardian angel? Sorry about all the questions. these things fasinate me. I would love to have a nde where I was told it not my time and I hve to come back. I think anyone who this happens to will say and know f or sure there has got to be some kind of life after death and there must be a meaning for the life we do spend here.

Hi Whiskers, I'm sorry I don't know the answers to your questions, I was quite young when my mother told me, I didn't think to ask her if she told her family and what they thought. I'm not even sure what we were talking about for her to tell me her story, she always had a belief in an afterlife, she took me to a Spiritualist church, just the two of us would go, I didn't think to ask why my brother & sister didn't come too, I am the middle child, i was at her bedside in her dying days, that's another story.